Portrait of James Christie

'Portrait of James Christie is a 1778 portrait painting by the British artist Thomas Gainsborough.

[1] A fashionable Society portraitist, Gainsborough had moved from Bath to London in 1774 and lived by Schomberg House close to Christie's auction house on Pall Mall.

He depicts Christie in fashionable dress of the era and leaning on the frame of a large landscape painting likely to be one of Gainsborough's own.

[2] It was one of twelve paintings that Gainsborough submitted to the Royal Academy 's Summer Exhibition that year.

[3] The work hung for many years at Christie's premises.